WHEREAS the federal government terminated the EnerGuide for Houses Program in May 2006, which included the EnerGuide for Houses Retrofit Incentive EGRHI and EnerGuide for Low Income Households Program, both of which encouraged homeowners to make their homes more energy efficient and which helped households cope with high energy costs, cutting their energy bills by an average of 30 as well as cutting greenhouse gas emissions; AND WHEREAS the federal government has launched a new energy retrofit program called the ecoENERGY Retrofit Program, which only provides 37 million per year for residential retrofits in comparison to the 89 million per year provided under the EnerGuide Program and which does not offer a retrofit program for low income households, such as the one that was offered by the EnerGuide Program EGLIH, which provided an additional 100 million per year; AND WHEREAS the aforementioned cuts will lead to a significant reduction in the number of Canadians who use the new energy retrofit program: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the Union of BC Municipalities lobby the federal government to reinstate the EnerGuide Program in its entirety.
